1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique which allows for control of a print process based on a policy indicating a control content of a stamp print process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recent leakage of personal information and confidential information may be caused partly by illegal accesses from outside, but mostly by careless actions of people inside a company. Further, paper on which confidential information is printed is taken outside and the confidential information may be leaked from the paper. With the recent awareness of personal information protection, companies are required to take measures against information leakage.
In view of the above points, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-299096 discloses a system for preventing information leakage from a paper medium such that when a user enters a print instruction through a user terminal, a predetermined character string (date, IP address, and the like) is forcibly printed on the printed matter against the intention of the user who wants to print.
However, the system forcibly prints the predetermined character string on all the print data in response to the print instruction from the client terminal. Therefore, the character string is forcibly printed even on the print data such as a photograph, a design drawing, a material for external use, and the like, which should not have the character string printed thereon.
For this reason, according to the system, when a photograph, a design drawing, or a material for external use is to be printed, the manager needs to temporarily set the print control function to an invalid state. After the user executes the print, the manager needs to set the print control function to the original state.
Likewise, according to the system disclosed in the Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2007-299096, when printing is to be temporarily executed on a printer prohibiting the printing, the manager needs to temporarily set the print control function to an invalid state. After the user executes the print, the manager needs to set the print control function to the original state.